Cat From Hell Review (Xbox Series X|S)

I could see the light extinguishing from her eyes—the once-accepting pupils of an elderly woman who loved her feline friend with all of her heart. It pained me to pull her into a dark place, but at that point, I couldn’t care less about her apple pies or neatly placed cabinet of expensive China plates. I wanted to dig my paws into everything, even if it meant watching a frail pensioner suffer from a heart attack in a fit of rage. I had no motive; I just had an insatiable desire to wreak havoc for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I could have left it, and I probably could have prevented an entire home from crumbling into pieces. But, that wouldn’t have changed anything. The damage had already been done, and I was merely living up to my reputation as the lovably mischievous Cat From Hell.

I tried to be a loyal companion to the elder keeper, but it just wasn’t worth the time or effort. And so, rather than leaning into silly little accidents, I decided to set the bar a little higher. I smashed a plate, and then, as if to accept the fact that I was slowly beginning to lose my moral compass, I ate just about every fish in the tank. All the while I was destroying that once-fruitful relationship with a pensioner, I could feel the shift in the atmosphere. Grandma was slowly starting to realize that I wasn’t an adorable pet, but a horrible creature that could unapologetically dismantle an entire world and never feel guilty about it. Once I began to accept that, I rolled with the punches. The world might have been on fire, but I couldn’t care less about the fumes, or even that they were fumigating a pensioner’s lungs.

Cat From Hell wears its heart on its sleeve as a simple yet satisfying first-person chaos simulation game. As the cat in this earth-shattering universe, you have the opportunity to rain hellfire on an old person’s parade in any manner you deem necessary. The only caveat, however, is that the more you obliterate, the angrier your human will become. In other words, you have yourself something of a balancing act. Simply, you must determine how far you can go before sending a little old lady over the edge, both mentally and physically. It’s Buckaroo with a feline twist, basically.

While there are no overarching objectives for you to ponder here, the game does provide you with a lot of unnecessary options to explore. For example, in each room you have dozens of interactive set pieces, each of which can be pawed at to make some form of damage to the home. As you carry out these rabid tasks, your keeper slowly learns to adapt to your mischievous behavior. A patience meter escalates, and before long you find yourself not only swallowing fish by their fins, but skittishly skirting around the floorboards in an effort to evade whatever a pensioner may chuck at you. It’s a simple setup I’ll admit, but like all things, it’s also a lot of fun to subject yourself to for the short time that you pour into it.

To tell a small lie, Cat From Hell does have a purpose, though it isn’t essential for the person to complete it in order to enjoy the overall experience. For the sake of adding context, though, it goes like this: a new cat arrives at the doorstep, and it falls to you—the evil one—to have them thrown out. How you do that, however, is entirely up to you. Do you knock over their litter tray when they’re in the middle of the act and then pass the blame to them, or do you smash a few dishes whilst they’re strolling by just out of Grandma’s eye to draw attention to them? A lot to consider here, but you get the point. If you’re not wreaking havoc on your own accord, then you’re essentially calculating a cunning plan to put a rival cat in the line of fire.

Although Cat From Hell isn’t the lengthiest game in the world (thirty minutes ought to be enough to finish it in its entirety, to be fair), the game does have some level of replay value to it. With a fairly large home and a whole bunch of different set pieces to work with, you can quite easily venture back and experiment with alternate methods for whittling down your keeper’s sanity. As for whether or not you’ll want to slip back into the paws and do it all over again is another question, and one that is likely to fluctuate wildly depending on your mood and what you classify as fun.

Suffice it to say that, if you possess even a single funny bone in your body, then you should be able to enjoy Cat From Hell for what it is at face value. Granted, it isn’t a great game, but for as little as a few bucks, it’ll certainly give you something to smile about. Perhaps it’s better not to expect anything greater than that.

Verdict

Cat From Hell is a slice-of-mischief chaos sim that, while not brilliant in terms of technical detail, brings a good deal of harmless joy and unnecessary drama to the litter box, with its silliness and general premise being the counterweight for an otherwise barebones feline-centric experience. To call it the best cat game on the playground might be an exaggeration, as it does fall short in a few crucial areas, like in its ability to conceive a long-term campaign with enough juicy details to keep you coming back for another rampage, for example. Still, it does what it says on the tin, and to some, that’s enough to warrant the purchase.

If you’re able to embrace your inner child and enjoy the little nuggets that don’t take things too seriously, then you should be able to get your money’s worth in Cat From Hell. If it’s a direct descendant of Stray that you’re on the market for, however, then I’d suggest biding your time and waiting for an alternate litter box to paddle your paws in.